


The Mad Statue of Dreams

by Digigal_transbian



Series: The Gems of R'lyeh [1]
Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Cthulhu Mythos Fusion, Crack, Cthulhu Mythos, Cult of Cthulhu, Cults, Diamond Authority - Freeform, Eldritch, F/F, Gen, Let Steven Say Fuck, Lovecraftian, Parental Blue Diamond (Steven Universe), Parental White Diamond (Steven Universe), Parental Yellow Diamond (Steven Universe), Post-Canon, Protective White Diamond (Steven Universe), R'lyeh (Cthulhu Mythos), The Diamonds are like Steven's overprotective aunts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24057805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Digigal_transbian/pseuds/Digigal_transbian
Summary: Steven finds what he thinks to be a gem artifact while lost in the middle of a forest.Formerly "That's Not Kornerupine"
Relationships: Garnet & Opal (Steven Universe), Ruby/Sapphire (Steven Universe), Steven Universe & White Diamond, White Diamond & Yellow Diamond (Steven Universe)
Series: The Gems of R'lyeh [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1736077
Comments: 22
Kudos: 26





	1. Steven Finds A Rock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven gets lost.

In the middle of a forested nowhere, Steven Universe wanders, completely lost but refusing to admit it to himself.

It was only a few months ago when he became that monster in front of all the gems. No one still has any ideas what to make of that transformation, if it was corruption or something else. On the one hand, corruption makes gems into monsters with a lower sense of self. On the other hand, he saw Jasper's corruption. It was slower, growing from splotches as her mind slowly fell apart.

What happened to him was more sudden, more rapid. There were no splotches and he retained a sense of self, kind of. He had as much of a sense of self as he had during the "cat fingers" incident that he tries not to think about too often. His mental state was stable enough, just highly unpleasant, and when he called himself a monster, he suddenly shifted.

He was angry. He hated himself. He felt like a monster and it all came to a head with what happened to Jasper.

His powers being emotion based, he figures that's why he shifted into the Pink Stevenzilla. It's happened before when he almost died of old age and turned back into a baby, where he felt and therefore became.

Which is why he finds himself wandering in the middle of a forest. His therapist has been great, sure it was uncomfortable talking about some of the things they did, but he understood why they had to be talked about. He asked his therapist if taking some time to get away from it all was a thing that could actually help him or if it just hurt him in the long run.

And on their advice, he finds himself completely lost.

Literally.

He has no clue where he is.

"Where the fuck am I?" He asks, knowing that if Pearl heard him she'd have the gem equivalent of an aneurysm. Garnet would pause for a moment before going back to whatever she was doing, Amethyst would cheer for him joining the "dark side", and Peridot would ask him what a "fuck" is.

Dr. Maheswaran would probably scold him until kingdom come. She didn't vaccinate him, help catch him up with his legal documents, and give him her blessing to date her daughter just for him to disappear into the woods and swear.

He cracks a slight smile, he really loves those guys. He tried to think of something to get Connie's mom as a thank you for everything she's done for him. People like fruit baskets, right? He'll throw some jars of pure Pink Essence in as a special something to make it a bit nicer, she is a doctor after all.

Hippocratic Oath aside, what doctor wouldn't kill for a panacea? Besides, she has gem patients occasionally, might as well have some gemedicine for any ailments.

He wanders deeper into the forest, letting his legs carry him wherever they will. It does nothing to help him find his way home, but that's not the point.

He thinks about his dad, after the monster incident they had a rehash of the conversation about his grandparents and how Greg was raised. Greg took some time to clarify some of the things he meant, and even apologized for not being the dad Steven deserved. Steven tried to reassure him that he did his best and tried to do right by him, at least wanting to make up for the mistakes of the past as compared to some other parents like Marty.

There were a lot of hugs and tears shared by father and son that night.

A couple days later, Spinel came by for a visit. They talked about Pink, the things she did wrong, the things she did right. She apologized for the injector and the rejuvenator and they agreed to start as fresh as they could.

Being around the Diamonds is still uncomfortable, but things are looking up for him.

The two of them managed to become pretty decent friends after their little restart, even inviting Centi, well, Nephrite, along for some adventures.

After a few minutes of walking through the trees and reflecting on the last month, he comes across a small clearing with a pond in the center. A log has fallen over near enough to the pond to act as a bench.

At the edge of the pond, Steven finds a peculiar rock. He's not sure what catches his attention about it, but he finds himself moving towards it in his curiosity. He pulls it out of the mud, brushing it off and taking a good look at it while he takes a seat.

The rock is carved in the shape of an anthropoid beast with proportionally small wings and the face of a squid, sitting atop a platform with a carved inscription that has been long weathered away. The rocky statuette is a murky green, a dark and unsettling desaturated hue that brings out a feeling of unease in Steven. With everything that's happened in his past, however, Steven hardly notices how the rock seems to exude a feeling of wrongness, as if the stone is an affront to natural order itself.

After the Cluster, no affront to any god or natural order phases him.

"Well," He mutters, "It is a pretty cool rock."

The air seems to chill as he examines the statuette, a faint whispering can be heard on the wind. He can't make out the words, but he feels something deep in his soul quiver at the sound. He brushes it off as just a memory of what happened a month and a half ago, when another thought occurs to him.

What if this is some lost gem artifact? Wailing Stones are still being found to this day, so it's not completely implausible. He knows the perfect gems to ask.

"I wonder what the gems would think of this?"

Now all he has to do is find the nearest warp pad and head for home. He starts in a direction he thinks might be north before abruptly stopping. He takes a look around as reality sets in.

"Shit, I'm lost."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Absolutely Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong •ω•


	2. Accursed Statue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven shows the strange artifact to the Crystal Gems.

After a long trek, and several full power floating leaps, he finds a warp pad, strange rock in tow.

Back in his house at the gem temple, Steven finds Garnet and Opal playing chess. Garnet has a strange grin on her face at Steven's arrival, but he doesn't think twice about it.

"Hey guys!" Steven calls into the room, hoping he's not interrupting anything important, "What's up?"

Opal startles and defuses in the confusion. 

"I win." Garnet's grin becomes just that little bit more smug as she looks at the dazed Pearl as Amethyst groans. They have been getting better about being stable as Opal recently, but the majority of times when they defused they were still slightly off balance.

"So, how was your adventure?" Garnet asks, helping Pearl back to her feet.

"Pretty good, I actually found this little statue thing and I was wondering if you guys knew anything about it."

"Oh?" Pearl asks.

"Yeah," Steven pulls the statue out of his bag and faces it towards the gems, "I found this little guy out by some pond in the middle of a forest. I was wondering if it was some ancient gem artifact that you guys could tell me about."

Pearl faints at the sight of the sickly green statuette. She doesn't poof, but it's a close one.

Garnet looks at the object, immediately and silently defusing. Ruby looks terrified as she walks over to Amethyst for a hug as Sapphire walks towards the stairs to Steven's room. Rubies eyes glaze over with tears as Amethyst hugs her confusedly. Amethyst doesn't know what's up with that statue, but something about it screams "wrong" to her.

"Nope." Sapphire says, grabbing a beach chair out of the closet, "Absolutely the fuck not." She grabs from the fridge a pitcher of the sweet southern black tea that Steven made yesterday, "Call White Diamond about it, but leave me the fuck out of that."

She calls a thing of sunglasses with only one eye out of her gem as she steps outside, tossing the beach chair in the perfect way as to have it land open on the beach, facing the ocean. She jumps off the deck and floats gently into the seat, leaning back with her drink as she gazes off into the sunset.

"Hey Stevo, I'm takin' Rubes up to your room," Amethyst picks up the scared Ruby over her shoulder, a deep concern lacing her voice, "I'll cover any burns she causes."

He nods, thrown off by the gems' reactions. To him, it's just a cool little statuette. It doesn't explain why Pearl is passed out on his floor, Ruby looks haunted, or why Sapphire peaced out. He takes the blue gem's advice and pulls out his Diamond communicator, dialing it to call White. If anyone knows about weird gem artifacts, it'd be White.

The communicator floats in front of him and splits open into a screen. On that screen, he can see White Diamond, Yellow Diamond, and Spinel in Yellow's gem reconstruction lab.

"Oh! Steven!" White happily notices his call, "What a pleasant surprise!"

"Hello Steven." Yellow says pleasantly, not shifting her focus from the gem shards in front of her.

"Steven! You finally called!" Spinel looks like she's about to explode in joy.

"What brings you to call us?" White asks with a smile on her face, noticing Steven's uncertain discomfort.

"I went on a walk yesterday and I found a little statue thing. I asked the gems if they knew anything about it and Pearl fainted while Ruby looks like she's haunted. Sapphire said I should ask you guys about it."

Yellow Diamond stills. A little statue that can instill that much fear in a gem? She only knows of a handful of those, and if it's the one she knows is from Shaggai…

She dreads the day that statue comes back to light. It took everything the three of them had to contain that issue.

"What statue?" White asks, following the same line of thought as Yellow.

Steven pulls the statue into view and faces it towards them. Spinel looks at it with a morbid curiosity, while Yellow and White seem to pale.

"We're coming over." White rushes out before the call abruptly ends.

A few minutes later, despite the call being over and the communicator turned off, Steven swears he can hear White spouting panicked obscenities from across the galaxy.


	3. White Panics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> White Diamond reacts to Steven's Statue.

White Diamond was having a good day, all things considered.

One the days when she wasn't going off world to help other, smaller gems have their voices heard, she enjoyed going around to help out Yellow and Blue.

Today, she found herself and Spinel in Yellow's reconstruction room as the yellow gem was reconstructing the forced fusion experiments she made during the war. It was simple and repetitive work, but calming enough to handle.

The communicator in the room suddenly lit up and opened to reveal Steven, holding something just out of sight. The look on his face screams an uncertain discomfort, but White can't place why that is

When he mentions that he found a small statue, the two Diamonds in the room freeze. Their minds quickly flash through every planet under the empire and every statue that can have a similar effect on gems.

The only ones she can think of fill her with an emotion she isn't very accustomed to. When he pulls the statuette into view of the camera, her feelings are solidified.

Over time, she became more and more aware of her own emotions and feelings, accepting them as they were and learning how to handle them.

She never thought dread for someone else would be an emotion she felt, but looking at the statuette in Steven's hand she learns exactly what it feels like.

A statue made of the kornerupine of Earth, carved in the shape she is all too familiar with.

The dead, yet dreaming, high priest of R'lyeh.

The sight of the unholy visage makes White and Yellow pale.

"We're coming over." White says, ending the call abruptly.

"What was that thing he was holding?" Spinel asks genuinely.

"Him who lies dreaming, who will rise again when the stars are right," White whispers in horror, she snaps out of her trance and straightens herself before turning to Yellow, "Get Blue, we're heading for Earth immediately to take care of that situation before it can become a problem."

Yellow nods sharply before darting off towards Blue's chambers.

White charges off in the direction of her ship, panicked obscenities flying from her mouth without a care. Her Steven is in danger, and while he might not be Pink, he means just as much to her as she did.

And he is unknowingly in danger.

Great danger.

Those statues are only found whenever the entities they depict are soon to arise. The statue from Shaggai is monitored constantly and tightly sealed away in the depths of a planet on the distant edge of the Local Group. The Trapezohedron from Pluto is also heavily monitored in a secure location albeit with less security than the large statue from Shaggai.

This is neither of those, but the danger they pose to Steven is the same as the statuette he found on Earth.

If He awakens, He will enslave all of humanity for eternity. Human minds are weak to his telepathic miasma of madness, the same miasma that inspired the Corruption Song used against Earth after Pink faked her shattering.

Steven is half human.

She won't let any old one, no matter how great, dare harm her Steven.

Her eyes narrow in determination as she remembers an old saying His worshippers used to spout.

"That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die."

She approaches the upper half of the full Diamond Mech and spots Yellow filling Blue in on the situation right in front. Spinel wrapped around her leg as to not get left behind, White Diamond steps between the two other Diamonds and cracks her knuckles.

"It's time for death to die." She says, fierce protectiveness in her eyes and furious determination in her voice.

There's a reason their combined ship is named the "Strange Aeon", after all.

Entering the ship in a white bubble, the Diamonds take their respective places at the controls. White commands the upper half of the Diamonds' ship to connect to Pink's legs, and with their most powerful take off yet, they rocket off towards Earth.

Nothing bad is going to happen to Steven.

Not on her watch.


	4. Diamond Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Diamonds land on earth and scramble for the statue.

The Diamonds land on Earth in the classic Hero Landing pose, ignoring the shield of ice that Sapphire rose to protect herself from the ensuing splash.

Exiting their ship in a white bubble, they begin scanning the beach for any signs of Steven. Nothing. Just sand, stone, and the ocean. Their eyes are caught on the umbrella and beach chair sitting on the golden sand.

"He's inside," Calls Sapphire, not budging from her seat, "Send Spinel in to take the statue and head off to the sunken city."

The Diamonds nod as Spinel breaks into a sprint, slipping on the sand and falling on her face as gracefully as a rock tumbling down a mountain. She picks herself up from her daily dose of sand eating and dusts herself off before breaking into a careful power walk to the temple doorstep.

Spinel barges into the house to a sight she never expected. Pearl lies face up on the floor, completely unconscious, while Amethyst and Ruby can be heard from upstairs. Given that she can't see Steven in the main room, she figures that he's upstairs with the other two.

Cautiously, Spinel makes her way into Steven's room. Sitting on his bed, Ruby curls into Amethyst's side as Steven whispers various comforting phrases. Her arrival catches the eyes of the Quartz and the Hybrid, but they say nothing and only nod in acknowledgement of her presence.

"Hey Steven, can I have that weird statue you found?" Spinel asks, hoping she doesn't sound too nervously desperate in her voice.

"Uhh, sure?" Steven nods, tossing the statue over to the old jester of Pink Diamond.

"Thanks, to the ship!" Spinel dramatically cries, spinning her legs in a figure eight like a famous blue hedgehog before charging through the window like it isn't there. Steven and Amethyst blink at her before returning their attention to Ruby.

The Diamonds turn their attention to Spinel, who is currently flying upside down with her legs.

"I got the rock!" Spinel yells as she lands before them. Her legs become springs as she leaps up the ship, climbing the rest of the way by hand. The Diamonds follow suit, walking back towards the ship before Sapphire calls out for them.

"Hey!" Sapphire shouts, grabbing the attention of the Diamonds and Spinel, who is currently hanging out of one of the eyes of the ship.

"Yes, Sapphire?" Blue Diamond asks cautiously.

"Give him one from us, will you?" The oracle asks, not budging from her comfortable beach chair.

"Of course, Sapphire." Yellow nods with a fierce determination before White pulls a bubble around them all and brings them into the ship.

The ship whirs to life, light pouring down through the mechanical body like blood through veins. Immediately, the ship faces towards the ocean before kneeling, launching themselves off in a proper sprint across the water's surface.

"Other way!" Sapphire yells, causing the ship to stop on a dime and turn around. The yellow arm flashes the blue oracle a thumbs up before the ship leaps into the atmosphere with great force. Looking on in confusion, Steven can only wonder what was in that statue. He shrugs, thinking that it was probably the key to Guacola.

Nobody likes Guacola, not even the Diamonds apparently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rest of this story is fully written, so there will be updates in the coming days.


	5. To R'lyeh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Diamonds arrive at R'lyeh and wake up its prime resident.

47°9′S 126°43′W.

The location of the accursed sunken city of maddening geometry. The Diamonds arrived not long ago, the statue connecting to the ship only briefly to gain the coordinates of the abominable city.

The corpse-city of nightmares sits just below them. Within its slimy green vaults, Cthulhu waits dreaming. 

Blue looks at Yellow, Yellow looks at White, White looks at Blue. White nods, followed by Yellow and Blue as the ocean waves crash against the ship.

With a nod, the ship braces and descends into the briny deep.

☆◇☆

They land in the middle of the main street of R'lyeh. The Diamonds take in the sight of the city with a grim determination. Resting inside the central temple of the slimy, ooze green city, waits Cthulhu, sleeping. Buildings of abstract and otherworldly architecture line the streets. Each wall curves in unnatural ways, as if the city was designed in four dimensions of space and brought down into the tri-spacial dimensional world.

Spinel, of course, pays more attention to the fish. To her credit, they are extremely colorful.

The Diamonds look at the city as it seems to move and shift without motion. White Diamond nods and rears her fist back, sending a single mighty punch that reverberates through the sunken city into the walkway beneath them. The atmosphere around them seems to change immediately. The star spawn of Cthulhu pop their ever changing heads out of their windows to look for what caused the quake, only to turn their attention directly towards the central temple as a noxious energy radiates from deep inside.

"Cthulhu naflfhtagn." White whispers with a faint growl as the Diamond Mech rises to the surface of the ocean, standing on top of the rocking waves.

Cthulhu sleeps no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn


	6. Cthulhu Naflfhtagn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Diamonds beat the shit out of Cthulhu.

The ocean turns an inky black, glowing a nauseating stygian green color.

From the depths of the briny liquid void, Cthulhu rises from his slumber. The monstrous entity stands at the same height as the Strange Aeon, bearing significantly more girth than the machine. Adorning his back rests two thin, sinewy wings. Glowing red eyes sit in his octopus head, tentacles drooping down his face over where his mouth would be.

His eyes focus in on the ship that stands on the surface of the ocean before him. Silence stretches between the behemoth and the machine, neither making the first move. The wind around them howls in anticipation of the oncoming showdown.

Suddenly, a blast of white light explodes from the mech's eyes, slamming into Cthulhu's chest with a dull, resonant thud, causing the Great Old One to stagger back. The enraged Cthulhu sends a powerful punch to the chest of the ship, forcing the machine to slide backwards over the surface of the water.

Cthulhu takes to the air, commanding his legions of spawn to swarm the Diamond Mech. The ship swipes at the endless swarm like they did when Sunstone tried climbing the ship on Homeworld those years ago. One by one the spawn fly off into the discolored ocean, yet more surface and cling on to the ship like polyps.

Spinel, meanwhile, tries to solve a Rubik's Cube. It's a 9 x 9 x 9 in the shape of a dodecahedron that she's been working on for the last week. She'll solve it one day.

The Cluster's arm emerges from the deep with a victorious thrust and pulls Cthulhu down by the wings, eliciting a yelp from the Great Old One. The Diamond mech lands on Cthulhu's stomach, pink heels digging into maddening eldritch flesh. Cthulhu gutturally grunts at the sensation. The blue arm of the ship gives the Cluster a thumbs up as the mech leaps back into the water, gaining some distance from the horrible behemoth.

Cthulhu attacks, flying towards the mech and readying his claws with fire in his eyes.

The Strange Aeon deftly dodges to the side and grabs the beast, holding Cthulhu in a Full Nelson while the Cluster gets to work. The Cluster rears back, palm fully outstretched and facing away from the behemoth. With a mighty swing of the gargantuan arm, the Cluster brutally backhands Cthulhu across the face. The resounding smack causes ripples to form through the ocean. The hand returns, slapping Cthulhu with an open palm.

The Cluster grabs Cthulhu by the face tentacles as the Diamond Mech loosens its grip. With a mighty pull, Cthulhu is slammed into the ocean. The Cluster swings Cthulhu back and forth, splashing the ocean into a mist around them all.

Cthulhu rises to his feet unsteadily as the Cluster wraps its arm tightly around him, keeping him firmly rooted in place.

The Diamond ship takes a boxer's stance as the Cluster holds the behemoth priest back in their mighty arm. With a steady rhythm, Yellow pilots the ship's fists into Cthulhu's face, one after the other after the other. Ba-boom, ba-ba-ba-boom, ba-boom. Each thud rings through the air for miles, the shockwaves splashing water into the sky.

The yellow hand of the Strange Aeon grabs Cthulhu firmly by his drooping nebulars. Cthulhu looks into the mech's eyes with an emotion that might be related to fear as the Cluster firmly holds him in place. If Yellow could make the mech smirk, she would. The maniacal smirk on the Diamond's face inside the ship radiates smugness with a potency immeasurable.

Yellow Diamond squeezes the mech's hand tighter and tighter, causing the eldritch beast to wail in pain. Sending a strong wave of lightning through the mechanical arm with an even tighter squeeze, the Diamond of War crushes Cthulhu's nebulars with a sickening squelch. The noxious sounds of the Great Old One's agony would make any human sick, but to the Diamonds it sounds like sweet, sweet success.

Cthulhu is on the back foot, taking wing and hovering above the ocean's surface. He screeches, the sound tearing shockwaves through the air, blasting the mech back. He charges at the mech, claws outstretched. The mech and the beast grapple, Cthulhu's hyperbolic and glowing red eyes locked with the empty white eyes of the mech.

White Diamond takes control of the ship for a brief moment, pulling her head back and slamming the eldritch terror's face in with it. Control of the ship shifts to Blue Diamond as she steps the ship back, readying the blasters. With a wide sweep of the hands, orbs of blue light surround the Strange Aeon, rapidly firing beams of photonic matter at the Great Old One. The beams pierce Cthulhu's wings, rending them little more than flapping masses of flesh.

Blue takes a stance she saw on one of Steven's cartoons, body low and her stance wide. Her arms sit at her side, the mechanical hands of the ships cupped in opposite directions over a ball of photonic plasma.

Thrusting her hands towards the beastly abomination with a kiai, the ball becomes a beam of glowing blue plasma. The beam of plasmic photons strikes Cthulhu in the chest, engulfing his entire form in a burning glow.

Cthulhu's left arm and leg are completely vaporized by the attack. His right calf burns to an eldritch crisp as the tentacles on his face singe all the way down. He floats above the water by force of will alone as Blue Diamond hands the control of the Strange Aeon back to Yellow to finish the job.

"This one's for Pink you eldritch demon!" Yellow calls out with a maniacal grin.

In the hip of the ship, a pink door opens between the legs. From it, two pink spheres emerge, followed by a long shaft. The spheres act as generators, coiling and spinning a destructive energy to the eldritch tune of the behemoth of an Old One. The pink shaft angles itself right at Cthulhu's core, the tip glowing with a hot pink energy.

"Eat death!" Yellow Diamond cries out, violently thrusting the ship's and her hips forward and releasing a glowing pink laser from the cannon with great force. 

Her aim is true as the pink light strikes Cthulhu directly, causing his form to destabilize as he tries to remain alive. His body slowly atomizes, every cursed molecule of his being splitting and vanishing from all of existence. The wretched spawn of his loins all feel the same agonizing death as their life and dreams are harvested from them in an attempt to keep their master alive.

His body vanishes in a blinding wave of light, the very particles of his unholy being erasing themselves from existence in droves. His spawn follow suit, vaporizing like nova in microcosm. The screams of their wretched souls fading away like dust on the wind.

With Cthulhu dead, no longer dreaming, the Diamond mech looks at the Cluster. The mech may not be possible of grinning, but the aura projected by the three Diamonds inside gives the Cluster that very feeling.

As the Diamond mech and the Cluster high five, the world is saved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was an absolute blast to write.


End file.
